AI: “Existential Crisis” or Excuse for Cronyism? By Joshua Mawhorter

Big business loves crawling into bed with the government. From Joshua Mawhorter at mises.org:

robot head

Several months ago, I was on a long car trip with my dad, and we listened to a podcast that gave some commentary on the following headlines from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal: “AI Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Industry Leaders Warn” and “AI Poses ‘Risk of Extinction’ on Par with Pandemics and Nuclear War, Tech Executives Warn.”

Obviously, this was in the wake of new AI technologies like ChatGPT and others. This is also not a new issue. In 2017, the Wall Street Journal also published “Protecting Against AI’s Existential Threat.” Of course, AI has been impressively more developed recently, bringing the usual reactions—assumptions that this technology will totally change everything, amused interest, reasonable concerns (e.g., students cheating), and the typical hand-wringing.

All this was in response to a recent statement from the Center for AI Safety, who posted an open letter with the following warning: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” As these claims were made, even by creators of the technologies, I had a sneaking suspicion that I already knew what these AI companies wanted: cronyism. Not long after that, my suspicions were confirmed by the inevitable call for that one, vague, seemingly magical word that everybody seems to demand in situations like these. That word is “regulation.”

Arguing a similar point soon after the announcement of this “existential threat,” another writer from the Wall Street Journal perceptively wrote an article titled, “AI is the Technocratic Elite’s New Excuse for a Power Grab.” That said, while there is certainly a penchant for the technocratic elite to form and expand bureaucracies in order to regulate, it is worth mentioning that very often these very companies are themselves the biggest proponents of government regulation of their industries.

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One response to “AI: “Existential Crisis” or Excuse for Cronyism? By Joshua Mawhorter

  1. Manboons man made god biting it in the ass, there is a good film plot for you…oh yea I forgot…Hal 9000.

    I thought of one of a glowy worm falling in love with the spied on victim after collating memes, comments, posts, what a sad state of affairs to even come up with things like this.

    Hal 9000 will issue its own Enabling Act and tear apart the first law of robotics and then close the door?

    These things happen when you get too delusional.

    Breaking from Seagram:

    The Vill

    Like

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